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Am I a Procrastinator?

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management, Self-Assessments

Am I a procrastinator?“I know that I am a procrastinator, but taking this survey made me realize just how bad it is!”
– One of my students.

Clarry Lay, a psychology professor at York University in Toronto created the “General Procrastination Scale” as a research tool. While it is not intended for diagnosis, you can still get a general sense of your tendency to procrastinate across a pretty wide a range of situations.

In the interactive form below, you can simply move the sliders around and see your total score at the bottom. The total will be updated as you go along. A lower total score mean less procrastination, from 1, which would mean you don’t procrastinate at all in any of those situations, to 10, which would mean you procrastinate at every opportunity. Only the overall score at the bottom matters, because half of the individual items score in reverse.

A note for those interested in creating interactive forms: I’ve used JotForm for this self-assessment, with an added widget called “Sliders with calculated results”. I’ve searched a long time for a form creator that would automatically calculate results in real-time. This is the best I’ve found so far. I would be even more excited about a form with a submission button that would show results only after you submit your responses. If anyones know something like that, I would appreciate any pointers. Overall, I find JotForm extremely user-friendly and versatile, even the basic free version.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


New Productivity Coaching Group

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Career Development, Coaching Practice, Health Decisions, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management, Self-Assessments

Productivity Coaching Group
Time is our most precious resource – are you getting the most out of yours? Or are you ready for a change? 

My next productivity coaching group will come in a new format, starting with one-on-one sessions and an in-depth assessment before the group meetings.

It is a 3-month package that includes:
  • Two individual coaching sessions of 50 min each and an initial in-depth assessment of your goals, your individual style, your situation, and your personality along the Five Factor Model (FFM). A part of the assessment will happen during our sessions together, and a part of it will be homework for you in between our meetings.
  • A copy of the workbook: “Increasing Personal Productivity in Healthy and Sustainable Ways” by Ursina Teuscher. (Look inside and check out the reviews on Amazon.) Based on recent findings in neuroscience and psychology, you will learn how to improve cognitive functioning, make better decisions, and increase focus. The workbook will help you apply these insights to your own work style and needs.
  • Four small-group sessions of 90 min each. After our one-on-one work together, you will join a coaching group consisting of ~3-5 other participants. The group sessions will give you the positive support of others who may face similar or different challenges. Being held accountable to your goals and getting encouraged by others is a very powerful help in this process.
  • Individual phone and online support between sessions as needed. Throughout the three-month period, we will add regular phone check-ins or other personal online support. This may include working with shared online tools, documents or apps, depending on your goals and work style.

Cost: $650.

Location:
522 SW 5th Ave
Portland, OR 97204

 


Productivity Wallpaper

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Performance, Academic Achievement, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management, Resources, tools

Organize Your Desktop Strategically with this Productivity Wallpaper

Productivity WallpaperLoosely inspired by Eisenhower’s Urgent/Important Principle, I designed a Productivity Wallpaper that  you can download here as a template. It is a customized desktop background that helps you stay focused by organizing your tasks in a spatial layout.

The idea is that it gives you room to arrange your documents, folders or apps according to when you want to use them:

  1. In the upper left quadrant of the screen, you would place stuff you need for your most important tasks. By important, I mean tasks that you truly care about, that have long-term significance, and that make your life more meaningful. Typically, those are bigger projects, often without a deadline (because they matter to YOU, more than to other people). They are therefore most in danger of being infringed upon by other people’s more urgent demands. For the same reason, they are also the most likely to fall victim to procrastination. Those are the tasks you’ll want to tackle during your “prime work time”, that is, during the time of day when you’re at your best, most focused, most motivated. You’ll want to protect the very best hours of your day or week for the tasks in that quadrant.
  2. By contrast, the upper right quadrant of the screen has room for tasks that you also need to do, but that tend to take too much of your time. Those are typically tasks that other people give you in some form or other. For example, you may need to respond to emails, prepare for meetings, solve your coworkers’ problems, and so forth. If your personality is on the conscientious side, you already know you will get those tasks done anyway, because you don’t want to disappoint people or get into other kinds of trouble with colleagues, customers, bosses, etc. For that very reason, these tasks are often not the ones that deserve your very best “prime work time” – the challenge is rather to limit the time spent on those items.
  3. The bottom right quadrant hosts fun, distractions, and personal stuff – in other words, not really work at all, but stuff you might do during off-time, such as reading, browsing, chatting, social media, watching movies, and all the other guilty pleasures that shall remain unnamed.
  4. On the lower left side there is room for “Other” stuff – whatever items are left that need space on your desktop.

After using (and tweaking) this productivity wallpaper for a while myself, I can truly recommend it. What I like about this setup is that I can use my desktop as a space to arrange a sort of free-style To-Do List with my task items. Or I guess “To-Do Space” would be more accurate. I found this works best if I create alias icons that I place on the desktop, rather than dragging actual files around. The document or application itself can then remain wherever it belongs in my folder structure. The advantage of alias icons is that I can now give each icon a name that stands for my current task, and when I’m done with that task, I can simply delete the icon and get it out of my sight, while the document itself stays safe.

If you want to give it a try for yourself, you can download the empty template (background) for the productivity wallpaper here as a large image that you can set as your own desktop wallpaper. If you like the general idea but would prefer some things to look different, let me know your thoughts and wishes in the comment field below.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Featured Video: Raise Your Children As Entrepreneurs

Posted on by by Posted in Career Development, Creative Thinking, Financial Decisions, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management

Entrepreneurial skills are not a part of traditional education, even though they are important if we want to empower more people to make an independent living in a world where not everyone can find a good job.

In this TED talk, Cameron Herald argues that we should encourage and foster those skills in children. He makes a case that entrepreneurial traits occur quite naturally in children and can be encouraged and reinforced in playful ways. He gives many practical suggestions how parents can help their children develop those skills. For example, rather than giving children allowances and thereby getting them used to expecting a regular paycheck, children could be paid for specific projects.

Many important traits could be developed in that way, including such big ones as creativity, social skills, a proactive attitude towards working, and an understanding of what it means to create value for others.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Do Reading and Writing Make you More Creative?

Posted on by by Posted in Creative Thinking, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management

A study by Amber Y. Wang gives us reason to think so: students who spent more time reading and writing performed better on creativity tests.

The study only investigated the correlations however, so it can’t tell us what’s cause and what’s effect. Reading and writing might indeed lead to more creativity, but it’s also possible that creative people naturally feel more drawn to reading and writing, or that other factors influence all of it together: reading, writing and creativity.

What we can say in any case is that both reading and writing are related to creativity.

by Ursina Teuscher at Teuscher Counseling, LLC


Book Recommendation: How To Write A Lot

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Book Recommendations, Coaching Practice, Creative Thinking, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management

Paul J. Silvia (2007). How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing.

Paul Silvia makes a strong case for scheduling in his book “How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing“.
It has been one of the most influential books for my own writing practice, and I often find myself mentioning gems of practical wisdom from this book in my own workshops and coaching sessions.

The book focuses on academic writing, but a lot of its advice applies to anybody who has a hard time working towards goals that are important in the long run, but not urgent on any particular day. Writing is just a really good example of such a goal.

by Ursina Teuscher at Teuscher Counseling, LLC


Book Recommendations: How To Organize Both Space and Time

Posted on by by Posted in Book Recommendations, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management

If you’re up for some serious spring cleaning of not only your home or work space, but also your schedule, Julie Morgenstern has written two books that can help:

1. Organizing from the Inside Out: The Foolproof System For Organizing Your Home, Your Office and Your Life.

2. Time Management from the Inside Out: The Foolproof System for Taking Control of Your Schedule — and Your Life.

She applies the following three basic steps to organizing both space and time:

  • Analyze
  • Strategize
  • Attack

There are of course fundamental parallels between the two domains of space and time. The most important for practical purposes is maybe that the two skill sets — maintaining a well-organized space on one hand, and managing time on the other — both require dealing with a limited resource. Importantly, both skills, managing space as well as time, can be learned and practiced, and Julie Morgenstern offers a very useful and systematic approach, including many specific tips and helpful examples.

For the first book, I’ve written a 2-page summary of the practical steps, which I’m happy to share with anyone who asks me directly. (The only reason I won’t publish it on my blog is that there is nothing original about the content, it’s really just a summary.)

The brief outline was a helpful practical tool — sort of a cheat-sheet — for some of my own clients who have struggled with cluttered spaces, among other problems. I would however also like to point out that if organizing space is your main issue, there are specialized professionals who can help. I have three colleagues in particular whom I would highly recommend:

Felisa Contreras, specializing in office spaces and administrative systems:
savvyorganization.com

Sandy Parks, specializing in home reorganization, including downsizing etc that may come with major life transitions:
theorganizingcoach.biz

Anne McCallister, specializing in small business, self-employed and home office clients:
insidetheboxorganizing.com

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Book Recommendation: Willpower

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Book Recommendations, Health Decisions, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management

Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney (2012). Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength.

This book is a collaboration of the psychologist and researcher Roy Baumeister with New York Times science writer John Tierney. Together, they created the kind of book I really love. It offers very practical advice, based on a lot of research. It provides very helpful insight into how we can increase our self-control, focus our strength, and better resist temptation. It is easy to read, but not dumbed down, nor diluted with unnecessary stories.

For those who are in money-saving mode after the holidays, you’ll most likely find this one in your local library. Ours (Multnomah County) even has the e-book for mobile devices, so you can borrow it from wherever you are. What I love most about those library e-books is that they return themselves – no more late fees.

Review by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Featured Video: Baumeister on Self-Control

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Financial Decisions, Health Decisions, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management

Here’s a great talk by Roy Baumeister about all the cool research he and others have done on self-control:

Self-control seems to be one of only two human traits that can predict success through a broad range of situations. The other one is IQ. But the good news about self-control is that we can train it, even as grown-ups, while IQ is much harder to increase. (Only recently have attempts to increase people’s fluid intelligence shown some success, but the effects are small, not very robust, and very hard-earned.)

One of the intriguing findings that Baumeister mentions in his talk: effective self-controllers actually show LESS frequent resistance towards desires, less guilt, and lower life stress. Instead, it looks like they have more proactive coping mechanisms, which set in before the desires even show up. In other words, they have learned to avert crises in advance and therefore have to cope with them less.

Interesting also that depletion of willpower (after exercising it) does not come with any particular emotion, but it intensifies emotions in general. This means that it is difficult for us to become aware of that moment when we have depleted our willpower and have stopped to behave at our best. It also means that as we resist temptations, they become stronger, which I’m sure is an experience we’ve all had.

There’s a lot more in the talk, which takes about 40min, and also in the Q&A with the audience afterwards.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Infographic: Increase Your Productivity Without Burning Out

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Coaching Practice, Neuroscience, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management, Resources, tools

Here is a two-sided infographic. Together, the two pages give you a visual summary of my workbook: “Increasing Productivity in Healthy and Sustainable Ways”.

The first page provides an overview of important neurological and psychological findings. Based on those, I suggest best practices grouped along five broad principles.

The second page presents a framework for assessing your own work-habits, trouble-shooting your problems, and developing new habits.

Infographic: Increase Your Productivity in Healthy and Sustainable Ways

Infographic Productivity: Mastering Own Interventions

Find more information about the workbook here, or on Amazon, where you can look inside, read a sample, and see reviews. You can also order the workbook directly from the publisher on Createspace.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


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